JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL OF MINNESOTA:

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota originated in Minneapolis in the 1930s as a response to a number of contemporaneous events. The presecution of Jews in Nazi Germany; the activities of the Silver Shirts, the German-American Bund, and similar organizations in Minnesota; and the antisemitic overtones of the 1938 Minnesota gubernatorial campaign all encouraged the formation of an organization to monitor and protest those activities. From 1936 to 1939 an informal organization, the Anti-Defamation Council of Minnesota, was the vehicle of Jewish protest against all forms of antisemitism. Members included Arthur Brin, Charles I. Cooper, and 21 other Jewish leaders in Minneapolis. A sister organization was established in St. Paul.

After the 1938 gubernatorial campaign, the Council realized the need for a more formal, activist organization. An attempt was made to enlist the aid of the national Anti-Defamation League headquarters in Chicago, but the Minnesota group's intent to function as a local, grassroots organization precluded this. The Anti-Defamation Council, as organized in 1938, included individual Jews in Minneapolis and St. Paul and representatives from the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, and the Jewish Labor Committee.

On May 15, 1939 the Council was reorganized as the Minnesota Jewish Council, with Samuel L. Scheiner as its executive director. Scheiner held this post from 1939 to 1974, except for the years 1944-1946 and 1951-1953. The Council consists of about 45 members. Chairmen serving since 1939 have included Milton Firestone, Louis Gross, Albert Heller, Meyer Dorfman, and Jack Mackay. In the 1950s the name of the organization was changed to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota.

The aims and activities of the Council have undergone a number of changes since the 1930s. Its initial purpose was investigative, with Samuel Scheiner and others spending much time investigating the activities of alleged fascist and communist organizations in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Groups like the German-American Bund, the Silver Shirts, Father Charles E. Coughlin's organizations, and the sermons and speeches of fundamentalist religious leaders like W. B. Riley, Paul and Luke Rader, C. O. Stadsklev, and W. D. Herrstrom were investgated and the antisemitic content of their communications was publicized.

During World War II the Council's attention turned to overt antisemitic activities: discrimination against Jews in the armed forces with regard to housing, hotels, resorts, and restaurants, and related matters. Reports of discrimination were investigated and reforms attempted. At this time, the Council also worked for passage of fair employment practices acts locally and statewide. The organization's wartime appeal was patriotic in nature, stressing national unity during a time of crisis and likening fascism abroad to racial and religious prejudice at home.

After 1946 the Council broadened its activities, still investigating discrimination but from a less defensive posture. It became involved in more wide-ranging community and national activities, supporting more liberal immigration policies, the Civil Rights struggle and civil liberties, separation of church and state, and interreligious cooperation.

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Clippings, reports, publications, and correspondence relating to the investigative activities of this organization created in the 1930s to publicly protest anti-Semitic activity in Minnesota and the United States. Largely organized as subject files (1922-1967), they document organizations, individuals, and publications expressing conservative political, religious, and racial views, as well as a few representing communist organizations.

There are also background and reference files on Judaism, Jewish history and culture, and the American Jewish experience; and correspondence, clippings, and other papers relating to Samuel Scheiner's work as the council's executive director (1939-1974). THe subject files and the reference files all bulk from the postwar period.

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The Subject Files and the Reference Files are each arranged alphabetically by file title.

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples

Accession Information:

Accession number: 10,408; 11,872; 12,187

Processing Information:

Catalog ID number: 990017190570104294

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The materials comprising this series were all accumulated by Samuel Scheiner during his work as executive director. In processing the series, Society staff consolidated some small files relating to the same person, organization, or topic, and sometimes created artificial files out of unfiled materials and miscellaneous folders. Materials in each file have been arranged chronolically by year, but have not been further arranged.

The prewar and wartime files are a record of the numerous organizations and individuals who, during the 1930s-1940s, represented right-wing political, religious, and racial viewpoints. There are also a few files relating to communist or communist-front organizations. The files show close relationships existing among right-wing groups and individuals, and how they capitalized on the Roosevelt administration's New Deal policies, the Great Depression, and events in pre-war Europe. Isolationism and religious and racial prejudice are documented, along with conspiracy theories regarding the predominance of Jews in the Roosevelt administration and in international banking circles. The propoganda of domestic fascist and antisemitic groups grew less overt during the war, and expressed itself in such things as rumors about Jews escaping military service and rationing.

These groups and others revived after the war, however, and rallied around opposing the policies of the Truman and subsequent administrations. Frequent foreign relations causes were opposition to the United Nations, foreign aid, communism, and disarmament. As commissions and agencies supporting human rights and fair employment practices developed, antisemitism--especially public discrimination--became a more tractable problem, but the Council continued to address remaining pockets of resistance, including periodic resurgences of neo-Nazi hate groups. Also, with the growth of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s-1960s, it came to focus more of its energies on the integration of African Americans.